On that note, when she was finally ready, I walked Ira home, searching often for leftover protestors daring to walk all over my exhausted self. It seemed Traudes shined high and bright, for it was late into the midnight, leading us through the fields for the Homestead with no fight. I made haste to station Ira at her post in the stable, ensuring no child lingered around, tying a triple knot on Ira's reins.

"Harper," my dad's voice shallowed from behind me. When I faced him, he approached. "Thank the stars you're alright. At first I thought that Break meant something terrible happened to you."

My tired head shook, recalling the pre-Blackout incident that occurred earlier in the day. "I'm... I'm glad you're okay too, dad. Had to Break us off in case it escalated."

"Are you okay? Need to take a rest?" He took my shoulder, leading me to a stone bench near Ira, who snuggled in her pile of straw.

I sat, leaning my head back against the wall. "Thanks."

He studied my face through his bifocals. "What happened?"

Taking in a quiet sigh, I said, "A lot. There was a pre-Blackout accident earlier, and then as I was leaving the city, Ira lost it in a mob crowd. It was all just hectic." No immediate response came. I could only imagine past my tired head and eyes the brooding that exposed my father's worried tone. Revived memories of the first Blackout I struggled to survive from replayed in my mental, one-moment montage. "Da—."

He hugged me. "I'm so sorry, Harper." Despite his tight grip on me, his voice was loose. "Your day did sound quite hectic. I'm so glad you made it out alive. I really am. I just can't say it enough." Releasing me, he looked me in the eyes. "I'm sorry that I must bring terrible news to add to it..." he sighed. "Eva-En died."

That I did not expect so soon, if at all, but it cleared up the protest's possible motive. "They found her?"

According to my dad, Border Officers found Eva-En in a Vorda crag, her body maimed from murderous blows to her head and covered in Shol traces. However, no one could use their Vorda sword and detect where it came from, concluding it most likely had been a product of Doson's cruel research. Weary guilt haunted me, leaving me with the false hope that I could have made up my lack of comfort to Yaeda-En, the victim's mother, that morning through a gradual effort to change the law. Instead, my effort resulted in a pre-Blackout I could not stop, an arrest of a mysterious Tritausen, and a public protest. My sympathy alone could not bring Yaeda-En's daughter home, and now her daughter would never come home alive. It felt as though I failed her.

"I thought I lost you too," my dad wiped streaming tears from his cheeks, his voice wavering. "I'm so glad..." Sometimes I felt my dad's passionate emotions could not sway my wall of cold stone, but his clear overwhelm of what I told him in conjunction to Eva-En's death, let alone the risk of another Blackout, had us both upset.

"As I've told you throughout my life," I gulped down my tight throat, looking into my dad's watery eyes, "I choose to fight, and I will fight to the grave, whether as a King's Justice or a father's farmer."

He worked past his sniffling, chuckling. "Hmhm, or as an army's commander. And fight for what's right."

Knowing the right choice always seemed difficult: Justice or Commander, black or white, high or low, big or small. In the end, though, as he said himself, if I stayed true to myself, it would at least work out for me. What stood right in front of me was an eternal divide between the Eltreisians and Tritausen, and going the wise direction on fixing it was more complex than right or left.

Ri-El most likely thought the same when she asked me about Nodus 1718 the night before. So, when she approached me in my bedroom after my conversation with my dad, she seemed torn between two choices: her family or her survival.

"You heard about Eva-En, right?" She leaned against the door frame.

Situating myself on my bed, I moved my eyes from the violet torch to her naked face. The despairing news forced her to protect her face from tear-smeared makeup. "I did."

"Those studies are getting worse," she shook her head. "But... the Officers are saying it was Shol-induced, you know, based on the Blackout scare earlier." I returned nothing to that, remembering Jorel's explanation of the Elders. Then, she added, "Thing is, Yaeda said she felt a Break from her daughter close to the time of her disappearance. It's almost like the Dosonites have willing Tritausen working for them or something, and I mean Tritausen with strong Shol power, or they could be slaves.

"Speaking of," she stepped closer, "Who was the one who asked about Joreph-El? Were they a Dosonite, too?"

No one asked about him, I frowned. Then I dug deep into my mind to make sure, exhuming the buried lie I told her. "Oh, mmm," I nodded, adding to the lie, "Just some passerby, didn't know his name or race. He looked like a Dosonite, judging from his tanned skin."

"Did you tell him anything?"

"Well, I couldn't, since I didn't know him. I don't know him."

Admitting with a tilt of the head, she rolled her eyes. "I suppose. Just... don't tell people much. I understand if your Justice position says otherwise, it's just we don't want anything happening to the Great Elders because of one of their relatives."

My thick brows bunched upon raising. "Relatives?"

"Yes. Joreph-El is Shol Elder Bivel's grandson. You don't know Joreph-El, so it wouldn't matter anyway. But whoever asked about him must have caught onto this. I hope he wasn't a Dosonite."

"... Yeah," I muttered. While I felt guilt for lying, in the process I learned more about Jorel, explaining how he managed to arrive from Shol-Et, Traudes to Cymeria, Cymel where I was. It seemed like he also had direct ancestry to the bosses of the Shol Tritausen tribe, giving him permissive rights. Getting to grips how large this situation became almost frightened me, for the Shol Elders had been watching me.

Light noise from outside waned within the room's walls, allowing a silent moment of meditation between us. Ri-El rubbed her eyes. It was rather late. "If only I could help Yaeda... she's going to take this hard. I know I am. I'm going to miss Eva-En working around the Homestead in the evenings, floating everywhere and doing everything. I'll miss her ability to make people smile the most, no matter how poor she was."

Eva-En ignorantly adored Cymerian law, too, which led to her impoverishment in the first place, I thought. Despite Eva-En's unclear positivity, she found ways to make dreary places around her chipper.

"I'll miss her, too," I rubbed a chilled arm, acknowledging Ri-El's agreement. Deep down, I sensed she missed her family, hoping they survived the pre-Blackout that day, wishing they announced themselves alive somewhere in Doson. Akin to the wall torch shining its brightest yet only lighting part of the room, we searched desperately with all our hope for a cure-all solution.

"Hey, I was wondering about what you said about working toward a cause," she crossed her arms. "And I thought that maybe there was something I could do to help. So, now that she's back after so many days, why not ask Miss Justice herself?"

I recalled Nodus 1718's conditions. "Right now, I can't support any cause dealing with Doson in any form. I would personally say that we should wait," though I personally thought we had waited too long. Nevertheless, Jorel's so-called prophecy reminded me. "The King could change his mind."

"I was just thinking... maybe I could save up some money and then submit a Nodus. You wouldn't really have to do anything but give me some advice, and then I wouldn't have to wait on the King."

Good luck with that, I thought, recalling Cymel's elite-controlled government. Either a filthy rich commoner or a courageous criminal earned its attention. As much as I wished to help her financially, the elites would have scrutinized for my support and punish me. I could barely share any of my money with the Homestead without being called out on.

"You could, but remember that the Nodus expires at the end of the Pure Season," I counted the few scores of days. "I think that'll come first before you can afford to submit a Nodus." Noting offense through her squinted eyes, I rubbed a chilled hand against my bed covers. "It takes time for one Nodus out of thousands in a day to reach a Justice, let alone to fall into the hands of one with similar interests as you. The odds are risky, and the stakes are high. So I would say to wait it out."

"Alright," she nodded, loosening her face. "Fine. I'll wait it out. It's just... I don't want any more Blends dying from experiments the government has the power to stop. Most of all," the flame purpled her glistening glare, "I want to see my family again, alive, whatever it takes. I'll give this wait one last try." I nodded, left to wonder what her fallback was. Turning, she walked out. "Good night, Harper."

"Rest well," I watched the door shut her away. Remnants of her footsteps stepped outside, and I fell back upon my bed, feeling fresh from a recent bath. What a day!

Staring at the pale ceiling, I planned what to say to he High Commander on the morrow, preparing an explanation of the Frontier incident and my reasoning on coming to Cymel-Seson in the first place. Should he have not attended, I still had to think of what to say to the Divisional Commanders, not to forget Jorel lingering at the back of my mind. My thoughts branched out, drifting for a historical artwork, noting each detail in the Justices Residences hall's ceiling collage, The Triumph Over Tritausen, demonstrating Eltreisian victory over Tritausen in the First Shol War.

On the planet of Eltreis, two distinct people always struggled to get along: the indigenous Tritausen and the conquering Eltreisians, no matter what race or tribe they were. Based on my personal, historical studies, taking my Cymerian teachers' brainwashed teachings with a grain of salt, the Tritausen lived on the planet, called Ilktris at the time, first and established its many tribes — mainly the Shol, Mitsen, Vie, Olon, and the Ceta in that order — and managed their immaculate superpowers, called Shol, for centrist, tribely functions. One day, anthropoid creatures, who the Tritausen called Eltreisians, crept into Ilktris, pioneering land and slaying Tritausen, marking the First Shol War. Even though Tritausen possessed superpowers, it still was not enough to top the invader's Shol-resistant technology upon the discovery of Vorda, let alone being unable to understand their advanced language and reason.

In the end, the Eltreisians won the war, forcing the Tritausen to relocate to Ilktris' moon, Traudes, and renaming the planet to Eltreis. The victors thrived, right where Cymeria was now, where they prepared and harvested Vorda elements and branched out among the climes turbulent to Traudes' position over the planet. Eventually, the spreading spanned so far out that they created separate continental states: Cymel (where Cymeria, the capital of Eltreis, was), Doson, Tisdair, Rosdea, and Nashl. Over time, these countries broke into smaller city-states, such as the border between Doson and Cymel becoming Seson, but those were the main ones.

Undoubtly, the Tritausen struggled several times to win their land back, but every attempt, like the Second Shol War, proved futile, becoming enslaved to Eltreisians. Each main Eltreisian country owned an entire Tritausen tribe: Doson owned the Shol tribe, Cymeria the Mitsen tribe, Tisdair the Vie tribe, Rosdea the Olon tribe, and Nashl the Ceta tribe. That made room for intermingling, creating Tritausen Blends, and then the game changed. By then, Shol Tritausen on Traudes, forming the Shol Elders system, had access to its new, populational class due to Shol left in Blended bodies. And the Shol slayed Blends left and right, starting the Third Shol War.

The Third Shol War was different, though, as this time each Eltreisian country demonstrated their own ambitions by then. The two largest continents on Eltreis, Cymel and Doson, conflicted on their motives, and Cymel assisted the Mitsen Tritausen with punishing the Shol tribe for their extreme, genocidal actions, putting a strain on the Mitsen and Shol relationship, and damaging the ties between Cymerians and Dosonites. In the end, Cymerians granted Mitsen power over their government to protect them from Shol, though over time Cymerians found theirselves on top of the chain of command again with their constant Vorda advancements. And the Mitsen promised to the Shol the same type of power, but based on what Jorel mentioned, that did not last long.

As I said, Eltreisian history was a real struggle for real power, but at the end of the day, it was always the rub between the Eltreisians and Tritausen. The Triumph Over Tritausen, from its bloody swipes and its violent heights, retold the present story best. While we were not fighting with physical force much anymore, we used political setbacks and obstacles to keep the warfare going.

If only Cymel could have seen the damage its isolationism caused. Now Doson planned to make Shol powers a commonality. At the back of my mind, though, I wondered if it would have been better if no powers existed at all. On that, I drifted to sleep.